Standing, Hanna walked over to the door and grabbed a notebook from her bag, shuffling back to me.

“Roll over,” she said, nudging my shoulder.

I rolled to my stomach and rested my face on my bent arm. The notebook was cool against my back, causing me to startle a little. “What are we doing?”

“I need to make a list of what Caltech needs to bring to the table to beat Harvard.”

I turned my head, barely able to see her over my shoulder. I liked seeing that she could admit that, most likely, every school would want her. But I also didn’t want her to get brokenhearted if she didn’t get an offer from her first choice.

I wondered if I’d pushed too hard for her to rank her preferences, to assume she had her pick.

“When do you expect to hear back from Harvard?”

She grinned, stretching to kiss my cheek. “I heard back from them today.”

Chapter Six

Six

Hanna

I knew it was wrong to call Will quite so late, but I hadn’t been able to call him until now, and I absolutely didn’t want to wait until morning. The phone rang only once before he picked up.

“Hey, Plum.”

“Hey, you.”

“This is becoming sort of a habit,” he said, followed by the sounds of the bed creaking.

“I know, we have scripted lines and everything.”

“How was your day?” he asked, voice scratchy and deep. We’d been in a good place when I left for Caltech, so I imagined he’d probably been actually sleeping, not just trying to. I glanced at the clock and felt even guiltier for calling so late.

“It was pretty great,” I said, and noted the pause on the other end of the line. I’d always suspected this particular topic of conversation made Will anxious, but it was only now—since our big blowup—that I knew exactly how anxious, and why.

Looking back, I could admit to having some measure of tunnel vision about my job search. I’d had a list of possible candidates, and I’d checked them off, one by one, not attempting to form any sort of opinion on the outcome until I had all the possible information. I’d been looking at the situation with the logical side of my brain, and quite frankly, the logical side of my brain was an insensitive dick. But now, taking Will’s point of view into account, I could see how unfair that had been, and how it was something we needed to do together, as a couple, rather than me telling him what I’d decided.